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response to anti creationist books; good job too.
Topic Started: May 17 2009, 05:08 AM (347 Views)
the breeze
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16 May 2009

A Brief Response to
Several Anti-Creationist Books


by Don Batten
First published in Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 12(3):275–278, 1998
All Rights Reserved.

hat about the anti-creationist books? I can’t possibly deal with all of them, but I will highlight some of the typical tactics and distortions used in such books by addressing some of those in the Selkirk and Burrows book, Confronting Creationism: Defending Darwin.[1] Such books normally present a distorted account of the creationist position, which is then made to look silly. They erect a ‘straw man’, set him alight, and then gloat over how stupid creationists can be to believe such things. Of course, creationists are not above criticism; we are human, fallible creatures. And sometimes the more ‘flakey’ fellow travellers of the creation movement give the sceptics cause to blaspheme. I have no wish to defend the indefensible. This response deals with deliberate distortions of main-stream creationist thinking by much anti-creationist literature.

The Flood
No creationist scientist that I know of claims that all the Earth’s sedimentary rocks were laid down in the Flood, as claimed in anti-creationist literature. The book also claims that creationists

‘are, of course, looking for evidence of a “creation week” and they clearly suggest that this is to be found in the rocks of the Cambrian period.’

I expect that all creationists would regard all the Cambrian strata as Flood deposits. Furthermore, both these supposed beliefs of creationists could not be held together — since there are a lot of ‘pre-Cambrian’ sedimentary strata, if all sedimentary rocks were laid down in the Flood, then the ‘creation week’ could not at the same time be in the Cambrian! The authors seem to be ignorant of both secular and creationist geology.

The amount of water calculated to cover the Earth’s mountains (p. 132) assumes the mountains were at the height they are now, and the sea basins were also unchanged. All creationist Earth models that I know of propose that major mountain-building occurred during and at the end of the Flood. Psalm 104:8, speaking of the waters of the Flood moving off the Earth, says ‘The mountains rose and the valleys sank down to the place which you established for them. You set a boundary that they [that is, the waters] may not pass over, that they may not return to cover the earth’ (NASB).[2]

The book claimed that the Ark had to contain amebas to guavas (page 134). It is stated a number of times in Genesis that Noah only had to accommodate land-dwelling animals that breathed through their nostrils, i.e. land vertebrates (for example, in Genesis 7:21–23). Amebae are water-living and hardly needed to be on the Ark. Plants and insects, etc. could survive on floating vegetation mats and pumice, and via seeds, pupae, etc. Other critics find as many ‘species’ as they can and then claim that it would be impossible to fit them all in the Ark. In this exercise they irrelevantly count all the insect species, for example, and also make no allowance for speciation since the time of the Flood. The original kinds would have been species, but most would now be the ancestors of several species within a genus or even within a family. For example, the dog/wolf ‘species’ that now exist are clearly derived from an original dog kind. See John Woodmorappe, Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, for answers to all sceptical attacks on the Noah’s Ark account in Genesis.[3],[4]

The creationist position on the general order of fossils in geological strata is caricatured. Hydraulic sorting and mobility are only two of several possible mechanisms. Creationists consider ecological zonation to be a major factor in the positioning of the fossils. Remember that many creatures buried in the bottom of the column tend to be aquatic bottom-dwelling, relatively immobile creatures. More mobile land-dwelling creatures are buried at the top of the stratigraphic column. There are examples of apparent out-of-place fossils, but these are dismissed by the evolutionary establishment and given labels such as ‘re-worked’ or ‘stratigraphic leaks’ to supposedly explain why they are out of place, or the accepted evolutionary order is adjusted appropriately. For example, pollen and wood fragments of more than 60 species of woody plants have been found in Precambrian rocks in the Grand Canyon.[5] These findings are seen as being impossible by evolutionists and therefore dismissed out-of-hand.

The book also grossly overstates the consistency of evidence for the evolutionary view of Earth history. For example, a trilobite found in Lower Devonian strata in Australia is like that found in the Appalachian Mountains in the USA, but unlike those found in Africa and South America, which are ‘simply not found’ in Australia.[6] When peddling the evolutionary story such problems are overlooked. Things which fit are talked about; things that don’t fit are omitted, especially in undergraduate courses in biology and geology, and in anti-creationist publications.

The Fossils
The authors’ claim that the gaps in the fossil record are due to imperfection of preservation or incompleteness of collection simply does not hold up to scrutiny. See, for example, Gould and Eldredge and their arguments for the punctuated equilibrium concept, where they admit that the fossil record is not seriously incomplete, and that the gaps are systematic and real.[7] Take, for example, the mammals, which are supposed to be a monophyletic group (descended from a common ancestor). The Neo-Darwinian model requires that every one of the groups has descended from a single, unidentified, small land mammal. Huge numbers of intermediate species in the direct line of transition would have had to exist, but the fossil record fails to reveal any of them. Of all the thousands upon thousands of intermediates that should exist, a mere handful of questionable examples such as the ‘mammal-like reptiles’ for the mammals, and Archaeopteryx for the birds — are held forth as ‘proof’.

The fossil record, rather than showing change from one kind to another, shows stasis — things remaining the same. You only have to look at the so-called Cambrian sea and you’ll find jellyfish, starfish, snails, sea urchins, brachiopods, clams and sponges — things you’ll find in the seas today, essentially unchanged after supposedly 500 million years or more. And yet the genetic system is supposed to be so plastic that, in this time, all the amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, birds and mammals, plus all land plants and angiosperms in the sea, fish and arthropods evolved, yet other things remained the same. How is it so? There are thousands of examples of ‘living fossils’. Dr Joachim Scheven in Germany has a museum of hundreds of living fossils. Dr Scheven’s living fossils feature in his documentary video, Living Fossils: Confirmation of Creation, available from Answers in Genesis.

Page 139 says that the creation science model predicts that every kind of organism ‘should have a fossil record as old as the oldest known organism’. I know of no creationist who says such a thing. One would expect that a global cataclysmic flood would bury bottom-dwelling sea creatures well before birds, for example. This is exactly what is found. The fossil patterns could result from a combination of ecological zonation, sorting action of water, effects of mobility, tectonic movements, and erosion at the end of the Flood.

Second Law of Thermodynamics and Origin of Life
In their arguments for the evolutionary model, Selkirk and Burrows are very misleading in many places. For example, they present an incorrect account of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and its relevance to the origin of life and the origins of new structures (this is almost universal in anti-creationist literature). Comparisons with snowflakes forming are, at the least, irrelevant and, at most, deceitful. Snowflakes are actually low energy, low-informational repetitive structures. The small amount of information required for the formation of snowflakes is present in the water molecules — their directional forces determine the hexagonal symmetry of snowflakes. All that is required is the removal of heat, not the addition of energy. The growth of a child from an embryo, or a plant from a seed, does not contradict the Second Law of Thermodynamics because all the information required for this process is present in the genomic ‘blueprint’. This, with the cellular machinery to harness energy, causes the formation of the complex organism, just as an automobile is made in a factory by machines which direct energy (with information) to construct a car. The machinery in the living cells drives the living organism to grow, directing energy to do it. Energy will not produce specified complexity unless it is harnessed by a machine to do so. Energy + matter alone will not produce a machine, or a cell. It needs information (a blueprint) and machinery to direct energy to arrange matter according to the information. And such information comes from intelligence, not energy and matter.[8],[9]

There is nothing about the information in DNA or in proteins which is self-constructing. The information does not lie in the amino acids or in the nucleic acid bases, but in the order in which these are strung together. This order is not inherent in the chemicals themselves. Take, for example, the supposed evolution of the hemoglobin molecule. Selkirk and Burrows argue that there are over 200 variations on the hemoglobin molecule which are all functional. Let’s just, for the sake of the argument, be generous to the evolutionists and assume that 85 % of the protein can vary in any way at all (a gross overstatement). What is the probability of the other 30 amino acids aligning themselves in the correct sequence? The probability is (1/20)30 since there are 20 different amino acids. This is a probability of 1 in 1039, which is impossible for all practical purposes. And this is only one of at least 100,000 different essential proteins in a human being, most of which are a lot bigger than hemoglobin. It has been estimated that the information in human DNA would take 1,000 books each 500 pages long just to record it (not explain it!).

On page 107, Michael Archer says that creationists use an analogy about the probability of a cell forming from the raw materials being like a tornado in a junkyard spontaneously producing a jumbo jet, and he criticises this analogy. However, creationists did not invent the analogy; it was Sir Fred Hoyle, then Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University.[10] Hoyle is a mathematician, understands this topic, and is candid about the insurmountable problems for all naturalistic theories for the origin of life. For a very thorough treatment of chemical and thermodynamic objections to evolutionary origin-of-life theories, see The Mystery of Life’s Origin, by Thaxton et al.[11] An excellent and up-to-date summary is provided by Aw.[12] Sarfati refutes a few currently fashionable theories.[13]

Michael Archer is either very ignorant of the biochemical nature of life (he has no qualifications in this field) or he is being deliberately misleading in what he says in the chapter ‘Squaring off against evolution’. For example, his talk about ‘microspheres growing, budding and dividing in a singularly bacterium-like manner’ has about as much relevance to the origin of life as the formation of soap bubbles in a bathtub. His statement, ‘While experiments of Fox and others have not so far produced life precisely as we know it’, seems to imply that they’ve come close, which is absolutely wrong. Of course, the old argument of ‘given enough time anything can happen’ is implied in what Archer says, which is ridiculous, because the thermodynamics of polymerisation of proteins and nucleic acids are such that they fall apart faster than they come together under realistically natural conditions (they need the protective environment of the cell). It’s only under very artificial laboratory conditions that it’s possible to form even small polymers of nucleotides or amino acids.

Archer also glosses over the problem of the steps of evolution. There can be no natural selection until you have fully functional, reproducing cells. The simplest conceivable cell which can reproduce itself must have some 400 or more different enzymes or proteins. Mycoplasma genitalium codes for 482 proteins.[14] This is by far the simplest genome known for a self-reproducing cell, and it is from an obligate parasite (hardly a model for the first cell when there is nothing to parasitize!). From the bacteria that have now been decoded, it appears that free-living bacteria need to code for some 2,000 or more proteins. Fred Hoyle has estimated the probability of the proteins for a hypothetical minimum cell coming into being by natural processes[15] as something like 1 in 1040,000. It’s impossible to conceive of such a low probability. Just consider that the number of atoms in the universe is something like 1080, or the number of seconds in the commonly supposed evolutionary history of the universe of 15 billion years is 1018. Each new capacity which evolution is supposed to have produced would require numerous new genes, new enzymes and proteins to be added at each stage. Just consider that a human being has 100,000+ enzymes and proteins, compared to the 2,000 or so in a bacterium. All this new information has to be added by accidents (mutations). Just take, for example, the formation of one very small protein of 48 amino acids. This requires 150 bases to be lined up in the DNA (including a start and a stop codon). The probability of this happening: 1 in 1090. This is just one very small protein. We’re talking about 98,000 or more extra proteins on top of the bacterium.

Evolutionary apologists such as Richard Dawkins argue that mutations and natural selection produced all the extra information. Mutations are accidental copying mistakes in the information contained on the DNA of living things. However, accidents could never generate the new information required. See some refutations of Dawkins works,[16],[17] and Dr Lee Spetner’s book Not by Chance for a thorough debunking of Dawkins’ claim that mutations can produce new enzymes.[18] With what is now known about the cell’s biochemistry, it is clear that there is no mechanism by which microbe-to-man evolution could conceivably occur. Walter ReMine’s book The Biotic Message is also excellent for showing that mutations and natural selection cannot generate new complex specified information.[19]

Cheating with Chance
Archer tackles the analogy of monkeys on typewriters typing a Shakespearian sonnet. To follow the analogy properly, the monkeys would have to type something which was meaningful and approaching the sonnet before it would be possible to ‘select’ what they’ve done. There is no selective advantage in having one, two or three amino acids lined up in the right order. There’s no selective advantage in having four or five or 10 or 20. You have to have 100, 200, 300, depending on the protein, lined up in the correct order before it can have any function which can be selected by natural selection. And then that has to be contained in a system which can reproduce it, otherwise natural selection cannot select it.[20]

Age of the Cosmos
In dealing with the age of the cosmos, Archer ignores all the evidence that the cosmos is young and just glibly states that scientists have proven that it’s old. Please see the pamphlet, written by nuclear physicist Dr Russell Humphreys, Evidence for a Young World and the references therein. A more thorough treatment, mainly of other evidences, can be found in The Young Earth by geologist Dr John Morris. The Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe by geologist Dr Steve Austin provides a case study of the Grand Canyon, showing that it can be better understood in a young Earth/Flood context. There are many other videos and papers on the subject.

Theological Responses
It seems that few anti-creationist books are complete without input from a ‘man of the cloth’ (preferably), or academic ‘theologian’. It seems to me the epitome of hypocrisy for ordained clergy to take the stand with Christ-hating atheistic evolutionists, to attack the very Bible many of them have sworn an oath to defend! Selkirk and Burrows have included a chapter claiming to be ‘the scholarly Christian position’, by one Ian Falconer. But this chapter is neither scholarly nor Christian!

For example, in this chapter, Falconer claims that there is hardly any reference to the Genesis record of creation in the New Testament. But there at least 200 quotes or allusions in the New Testament, with at least 44 in the Gospels. For example, Jesus Christ himself cited Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as historical to teach on marriage and divorce in Matthew 19:3–9. He clearly accepted that Noah’s Flood and the Ark were real events in Luke 17:26–27. Paul based his teachings about the significance of the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus on the historical facts of the existence of the first man, Adam, and his sin bringing the curse of death and suffering into God’s perfect creation (I Corinthians 15:21–22; compare Genesis 3).

So how can Falconer’s position be ‘Christian’ when he ignores what Christ taught? But we shouldn’t be surprised Falconer seems to believe that religious belief itself is the product of evolution rather than divine revelation. He claims that Teilhard de Chardin and A.N. Whitehead were ‘Christian scholars’, but neither of them were ‘Christian’, unless the description has lost all meaning. Teilhard claimed blasphemous things like ‘Christ himself is saved through evolution’. If a label could be put on Teilhard de Chardin, it would be ‘pantheist’.[21] Whitehead was a founder of ‘Process Theology’ which makes God into a finite, evolving being hardly the God of the Bible.

There is no evidence that Falconer has read any theological arguments put forward by creationists, so his comments do not address the issues creationists think are important, in particular, sin/death causality and the perspicuity of Scripture.[22],[23],[24],[25]

Further Reading
For a more thorough treatment of the usual criticisms of creationist scientists, I recommend Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics by Dr Duane Gish (ICR, 1993, 451 pp.), which is available from Answers in Genesis.[26]

References
[1] Selkirk, D.R. and Burrows, F.J. (eds), 1987. Confronting Creationism: Defending Darwin, New South Wales University Press, Sydney. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[2] Taylor, C.V., 1998. Did the mountains really rise according to Psalm 104:8? CEN Tech. J., 12(3):312. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[3] Woodmorappe, J., 1996. Noah’s Ark: A Feasibility Study, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[4] See also Sarfati, J.D., 1997. How did all the animals fit on Noah’s Ark? Creation, 19(2):16–19. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[5] Howe, G.F., Williams, E.L., Matzko, G.T. and Lammerts, W.E., 1988. Creation Research Society Studies on Precambrian pollen — Part III: A pollen analysis of Hakatai Shale and other Grand Canyon rocks. Creation Research Society Quarterly, 24(4):173–182. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[6] Eldredge, N., 1986. Time Frames: the Rethinking of Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, Heinemann, London. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[7] Batten, D., 1994. Punctuated equilibrium: come of age? CEN Tech. J., 8(2):131–137. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[8] Gitt, W., 1997. In the Beginning was Information (also available in German), Christliche Literatur–Verbreitung e.V., Bielefeld, Germany. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[9] Gitt, W., 1996. Information, science and biology. CEN Tech. J., 10(2):181–187. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[10] As quoted in: Anon., 1981. ‘Hoyle on Evolution’, Nature, 294:105. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[11] Thaxton, C.B., Bradley, W. L. and Olsen, R.L., 1984. The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Foundation for Thought and Ethics, published by Lewis and Stanley, Dallas, Texas. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[12] Aw, S.E., 1996. The origin of life: a critique of current scientific models. CEN Tech. J., 10(3):300–314. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[13] Sarfati, J.D., 1997. Self-replicating enzymes. CEN Tech. J., 11(1):4–6. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[14] Fraser, C.M. et al., 1995. The minimal gene complement of Mycoplasma genitalium. Science, 270(5235):397–403; perspective by Goffeau, A. ‘Life With 482 Genes’, same issue, pp. 445–6. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[15] Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe, N. C., 1981. Evolution from Space, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, p. 24. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[16] Bohlin, R.G., 1996. Up a river without a paddle — River Out of Eden: a Darwinian View of Life, by Richard Dawkins. CEN Tech. J, 10(3):322–327. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[17] Sarfati, J.D., 1998. Review of Climbing Mt Improbable. CEN Tech. J., 12(1):29–34. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[18] Spetner, L., 1997. Not by Chance, Judaica Press, Brooklyn, New York. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[19] ReMine, W.J., 1993. The Biotic Message, St. Paul Science, Saint Paul, Minnesota. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[20] Batten, D.J., 1995. Cheating with chance. Creation ex nihilo, 17(4):14–15. This article exposes some of the common irrelevant analogies employed by evolutionists in attempts to neutralise the argument from probability. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[21] Lane, D.H., 1996. The Phenomenon of Teilhard: Prophet for a New Age, Mercer University Press. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[22] Shackelford, D. G., 1997. The relationship between the Fall, Curse, and the Gospel, and its incompatibility with theistic evolution. CEN Tech. J., 11(1):11–17. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[23] Stambaugh, J., 1996. Creation, suffering and the problem of evil. CEN Tech. J., 10(3):391–404. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[24] Ham, K.A., 1987. Evolution: The Lie, Master Books, Colorado Springs, Colorado. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[25] Kelly, D.F., 1997. Creation and Change, Mentor, Christian Focus Publications, Fearn, U.K. [RETURN TO TEXT]

[26] For a response to anti-creationist book, Telling Lies for God, by Ian Plimer, see the Answers in Genesis website. [RETURN TO TEXT]




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"response to anti creationist books"

You just succeeded in defeating everything you've posted on creationism. If creationism is science, as you pretend, then it would relish challenges and not view those as anti-anything. Apparently creationism is, thus, religion.

And not much of a religion at that, argued only by the merest fringe of Christians.

"Of course, creationists are not above criticism; we are human, fallible creatures. And sometimes the more ‘flakey’ fellow travellers of the creation movement give the sceptics cause to blaspheme. I have no wish to defend the indefensible."

Is there anything else?

"Christ-hating atheistic evolutionists"

:hystery: :hystery: :hystery:
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ngc1514
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"Christ-hating atheistic evolutionists"

Gosh.. I know a fair number of evolutionists - our oldest daughter is one with a PhD in evolutionary biology and population genetics who is a church-going Christian who definitely doesn't hate Christ nor is she an atheist.

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Age of the Cosmos
In dealing with the age of the cosmos, Archer ignores all the evidence that the cosmos is young and just glibly states that scientists have proven that it’s old.

Possibly because there is no such evidence?

Nor is there any that the universe was created 10 minutes ago as a figment of my imagination and he probably ignores that as well!

All the evidence points to an old universe, but I'd bet that Archer never "glibly states that scientists have proven that it's old." And, if he did, how does that contrast to creationists - Young Earth Creationists - glibly stating the earth is young?

The difference between science and creationism is that science will follow a trail of evidence wherever it leads. Creationists are only attempting to support what they already believe. It may be interesting and fun to watch, but it ain't science.
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"Christ-hating atheistic evolutionists"

But that is part and parcel the deception. By around the 1920s theism had lost the argument with evolutionary theory, and most theists adapted and adopted it within their theism--as most churches today accept evolutionary theory and a nonliteral reading of Genesis. All except a few militant hold outs, who adopted their militant stance from, ironically, Huxley and other followers of Darwin. Just as today the proponents of ID have adopted the 1950s polyculturalism of liberal arts in their pleas it just a theory and theirs, ID (creationism) should have equal rights in the classroom.
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What I find fascinating is that some of the creationist organizations REQUIRE members to sign a statement of faith. As mentioned before, rather than allowing research to lead where it will, the members of these organizations have already decided what is true and what isn't!

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What does the ASA believe?

As an organization, the ASA does not take a position when there is honest disagreement between Christians on an issue. We are committed to providing an open forum where controversies can be discussed without fear of unjust condemnation. Legitimate differences of opinion among Christians who have studied both the Bible and science are freely expressed within the Affiliation in a context of Christian love and concern for truth.

Our platform of faith has four important planks:

1. We accept the divine inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible in matters of faith and conduct.
2. We confess the Triune God affirmed in the Nicene and Apostles' creeds which we accept as brief, faithful statements of Christian doctrine based upon Scripture.
3. We believe that in creating and preserving the universe God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of scientific investigation.
4. We recognize our responsibility, as stewards of God's creation, to use science and technology for the good of humanity and the whole world.

American Scientific Affiliation http://www.asa3.org/ASA/faithASA.html

Breezy likes the "Answers in Genesis" web. Their statement is a lot more detailed.
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Section 1: Priorities

1. The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer and Judge.
2. The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Section 2: Basics

1. The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority in everything it teaches. Its authority is not limited to spiritual, religious or redemptive themes but includes its assertions in such fields as history and science.
2. The final guide to the interpretation of Scripture is Scripture itself.
3. The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
4. The various original life-forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God. The living descendants of any of the original kinds (apart from man) may represent more than one species today, reflecting the genetic potential within the original kind. Only limited biological changes (including mutational deterioration) have occurred naturally within each kind since Creation.
5. The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
6. The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman), and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis for the necessity of salvation for mankind.
7. Death (both physical and spiritual) and bloodshed entered into this world subsequent to and as a direct consequence of man’s sin.

Section 3: Theology

1. The Godhead is triune: one God, three Persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
2. All mankind are sinners, inherently from Adam and individually (by choice) and are therefore subject to God’s wrath and condemnation.
3. Freedom from the penalty and power of sin is available to man only through the sacrificial death and shed blood of Jesus Christ, and His complete and bodily Resurrection from the dead.
4. The Holy Spirit enables the sinner to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.
5. The Holy Spirit lives and works in each believer to produce the fruits of righteousness.
6. Salvation is a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone and expressed in the individual’s repentance, recognition of the death of Christ as full payment for sin, and acceptance of the risen Christ as Saviour, Lord and God.
7. All things necessary for our salvation are either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from Scripture.
8. Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
9. Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father, and shall return in person to this Earth as Judge of the living and the dead.
10. Satan is the personal spiritual adversary of both God and man.
11. Those who do not believe in Christ are subject to everlasting conscious punishment, but believers enjoy eternal life with God.
12. The only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of marriage. Any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, incest, fornication, adultery, pornography, etc., are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex.

Section 4: General

The following are held by members of the Board of Answers in Genesis to be either consistent with Scripture or implied by Scripture.

1. Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
2. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
3. The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
4. The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture.
5. The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, is rejected.
6. By definition, no apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.

Updated: April 29, 2009

http://www.answersingenesis.org/about/faith

The Institute of Creation "Research"
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Principles of Scientific Creationism


* The physical universe of space, time, matter, and energy has not always existed, but was supernaturally created by a transcendent personal Creator who alone has existed from eternity.

* The phenomenon of biological life did not develop by natural processes from inanimate systems but was specially and supernaturally created by the Creator.

* Each of the major kinds of plants and animals was created functionally complete from the beginning and did not evolve from some other kind of organism. Changes in basic kinds since their first creation are limited to "horizontal" changes (variations) within the kinds, or "downward" changes (e.g., harmful mutations, extinctions).

* The first human beings did not evolve from an animal ancestry, but were specially created in fully human form from the start. Furthermore, the "spiritual" nature of man (self-image, moral consciousness, abstract reasoning, language, will, religious nature, etc.) is itself a supernaturally created entity distinct from mere biological life.

* The record of earth history, as preserved in the earth's crust, especially in the rocks and fossil deposits, is primarily a record of catastrophic intensities of natural processes, operating largely within uniform natural laws, rather than one of gradualism and relatively uniform process rates. There are many scientific evidences for a relatively recent creation of the earth and the universe, in addition to strong scientific evidence that most of the earth's fossiliferous sedimentary rocks were formed in an even more recent global hydraulic cataclysm.

* Processes today operate primarily within fixed natural laws and relatively uniform process rates, but since these were themselves originally created and are daily maintained by their Creator, there is always the possibility of miraculous intervention in these laws or processes by their Creator. Evidences for such intervention should be scrutinized critically, however, because there must be clear and adequate reason for any such action on the part of the Creator.

* The universe and life have somehow been impaired since the completion of creation, so that imperfections in structure, disease, aging, extinctions, and other such phenomena are the result of "negative" changes in properties and processes occurring in an originally-perfect created order.

* Since the universe and its primary components were created perfect for their purposes in the beginning by a competent and volitional Creator, and since the Creator does remain active in this now-decaying creation, there do exist ultimate purposes and meanings in the universe. Teleological considerations, therefore, are appropriate in scientific studies whenever they are consistent with the actual data of observation. Furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that the creation presently awaits the consummation of the Creator's purpose.

* Although people are finite and scientific data concerning origins are always circumstantial and incomplete, the human mind (if open to possibility of creation) is able to explore the manifestations of that Creator rationally, scientifically, and teleologically.

Principles of Biblical Creationism


* The Creator of the universe is a triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is only one eternal and transcendent God, the source of all being and meaning, and He exists in three Persons, each of whom participated in the work of creation.

* The Bible, consisting of the thirty-nine canonical books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament, is the divinely-inspired revelation of the Creator to man. Its unique, plenary, verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings, as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.

* All things in the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of the Creation Week described in Genesis 1:1-2:3, and confirmed in Exodus 20:8-11. The creation record is factual, historical, and perspicuous; thus all theories of origins or development that involve evolution in any form are false. All things that now exist are sustained and ordered by God's providential care. However, a part of the spiritual creation, Satan and his angels, rebelled against God after the creation and are attempting to thwart His divine purposes in creation.

* The first human beings, Adam and Eve, were specially created by God, and all other men and women are their descendants. In Adam, mankind was instructed to exercise "dominion" over all other created organisms, and over the earth itself (an implicit commission for true science, technology, commerce, fine art, and education), but the temptation by Satan and the entrance of sin brought God's curse on that dominion and on mankind, culminating in death and separation from God as the natural and proper consequence.

* The biblical record of primeval earth history in Genesis 1-11 is fully historical and perspicuous, including the creation and Fall of man, the Curse on the Creation and its subjection to the bondage of decay, the promised Redeemer, the worldwide cataclysmic deluge in the days of Noah, the post-diluvian renewal of man's commission to subdue the earth (now augmented by the institution of human government), and the origin of nations and languages at the tower of Babel.

* The alienation of man from his Creator because of sin can only be remedied by the Creator Himself, who became man in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, through miraculous conception and virgin birth. In Christ were indissolubly united perfect sinless humanity and full deity, so that His substitutionary death is the only necessary and sufficient price of man's redemption. That the redemption was completely efficacious is assured by His bodily resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven; the resurrection of Christ is thus the focal point of history, assuring the consummation of God's purposes in creation.

* The final restoration of creation's perfection is yet future, but individuals can immediately be restored to fellowship with their Creator on the basis of His redemptive work on their behalf, receiving forgiveness and eternal life solely through personal trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting Him not only as estranged Creator, but also as reconciling Redeemer and coming King. Those who reject Him, however, or who neglect to believe on Him, thereby continue in their state of rebellion and must ultimately be consigned to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

* The eventual accomplishment of God's eternal purposes in creation, with the removal of His curse and the restoration of all things to divine perfection, will take place at the personal bodily return to earth of Jesus Christ to judge and purge sin and to establish His eternal kingdom.

* Each believer should participate in the "ministry of reconciliation" by seeking both to bring individuals back to God in Christ (the "Great Commission") and to "subdue the earth" for God's glory (the Edenic-Noahic Commission). The three institutions established by the Creator for the implementation of His purposes in this world (home, government, church) should be honored and supported as such.

http://www.icr.org/tenets/

And others. Stating what you think to be true and then pretending to find evidence to support that statement of faith just ain't science.


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Deleted User

In short...

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If you can pick it up through the library system, I recommend an excellent history: Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. First half is a history, second half is a very enlightened look at issues. In fact, here it is online--I direct your attention past the history, which is interesting, to chapters 5 and 6 on Enlightenment Science and Creation Science.
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